The 7 October attack by Hamas militants that killed over 1,400 people and resulted in more than 220 hostages was “clearly a crime against humanity”, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the former chief prosector of the International Criminal Court has said.
“Hamas’s attack on October 7 is clearly a crime against humanity… Because killings with the intention to strike a group is a genocide, and Hamas’s official intention is to strike Israelis,” he told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
“It’s a war crime, because taking hostages is a war crime,” he added.
But Mr Moreno-Ocampo also referred to Israel’s subsequent blockade of Gaza as a “crime against humanity and a genocide”.
“One of the forms to commit a genocide is to inflict on the people [sic] conditions to destroy them. And that’s exactly what the blockade is.
“The blockade is blocking water, food, hospitals cannot work, [there is] no electricity for people who can go nowhere. Israel has the right to defend itself, but cannot block 2 million people and in doing so make it into a concentration camp,” he said.
BBC
